1. Field of the Invention
The apparatus of the present invention relates to scrapers. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved scraper having a powered, reciprocating scraping blade, and including a support member to provide easy maneuverability of the scraper during use, which could be utilized, for example, to scrap barnacles off of ship hulls.
2. General Background
In general, many solid deposits which result on surfaces exposed to the weather, such as peeling paint, or solid deposits on metal, such as the interiors of tank cars, require manual scraping in order to remove the deposit from the surface. In general, there are numerous types of hand-held, manually operated scrapers, which, through tedious and tiresome work, get the scraping job accomplished. Some tasks which require scraping, however, are too vast and difficult to undertake manually, and if done manually, takes numerous man hours and an enormous amount of time.
One such time-consuming and difficult task, for example, occurs in the maritime industry. In the maintenance of sea vessels, such as boats or ships, one of the most demanding maintenance procedures is the procedure for scraping barnacles off of the hull of the vessel when it is placed in dry dock. After continued and long-term use of the vessel in sea water, barnacles become attached to the hull of the vessel, and the removal of the barnacles is a critical factor in returning the vessel to seaworthiness, to protect the integrity of the exterior hull surface. Therefore, many man hours of difficult work is undertaken in manually chipping the barnacles off of the vessel hull. In the present state of the art, this work is difficult and very time-consuming. What is needed is a system for scraping, for example, maritime vessel hulls, which would reduce the manual work of the scraping task, and at the same time, increase the production time in completing the task.
Several patents were found as a result of a patentability search conducted in the art. These patents are referenced in the art statement submitted herewith and incorporated herein by reference thereto. Other objects of the invention will be obvious to those skilled in the art from the following description of the invention.